


Thirteen Perspectives on One Graduation Party

by flaming_muse



Category: Glee
Genre: Episode Related, F/F, F/M, Gen, Graduation, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-28
Updated: 2014-03-28
Packaged: 2018-01-17 08:24:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1380748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flaming_muse/pseuds/flaming_muse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thirteen views of Tina Cohen-Chang’s 2013 New Directions Graduation Sleepover Party.</p><p>set after 5x13 (“New Directions”), no spoilers beyond</p>
            </blockquote>





	Thirteen Perspectives on One Graduation Party

**Author's Note:**

> warning for mentions of Finn

_Kurt_

Kurt adjusts the small overnight bag on his shoulder as he and Blaine make their way up the walk to the front door of Tina’s house. He knows most people won’t be bringing much with them to Tina’s graduation party, but if they’re all sleeping over then he definitely wants a toothbrush, some hair products, a change of clothes, and the ability to moisturize if he feels like it.

It’s not like he’s a total slave to his routine or wearing tidy clothes at this point - his time in New York has made him a lot more flexible around his friends - but he also knows if someone spills a drink on him he isn’t going to want to have to wait until he gets back home in the morning to put on something clean. And with this crowd the spilling is probably not an if but a when.

“I can’t believe Tina’s parents are letting her have us all over,” Blaine says he all but dances up the steps to her front porch, his usual grace enhanced by his obvious excitement.

“They clearly didn’t hear about Rachel’s party junior year,” Kurt says. “I feel like we were cleaning up that mess for days. There wasn’t enough Febreeze in the world to cover the smell of spilled alcohol and teenage hormones left in her basement.”

“There won’t be any alcohol here,” Blaine reminds him. “Tina’s parents are home.” He leans close, brushing his shoulder against Kurt’s as he rings the doorbell and dropping his voice to a sultry murmur. “And we’ll just have to keep our hormones to ourselves.”

Kurt smiles over at him, unconvinced about both the alcohol and the hormones. He’s known these people a long time. They aren’t known for keeping themselves under control.

And with the way Blaine is smiling at him, Kurt’s a little worried about his own hormones, too. He knows exactly what that twinkle and banked heat in Blaine’s eyes means Blaine is feeling toward him, and he’s not in any way immune to it. Mostly he doesn’t want to be immune, because he absolutely loves being wanted by Blaine. Occasionally, though - like right now, when they’re going to be surrounded by their friends all night - it’s inconvenient.

A moment later, Tina flings open the front door, a red plastic cup in her hand and a bright smile on her face. Laughter and music pour out behind her, people singing along with what’s playing on the stereo somewhere nearby in the house.

“Welcome to the New Directions Graduation Sleepover!” she says, spreading her arms wide in greeting.

Kurt lets Blaine lead the way inside, and she gives them both quick, one-armed hugs. There’s a “Happy Graduation!” banner hanging in the front hall, red and white paper streamers flowing in the doorways, and a bunch of bright balloons bobbing against the ceiling in the living room.

“Snacks and soda are in the kitchen,” Tina says, pointing. “The bathroom’s down the hall there, and there’s one upstairs, too. The pizza will be here in half an hour. My parents say the girls are sleeping upstairs in my room, and the boys are all down in the rec room in the basement.” She leans in with a grin. “You guys lucked out, huh?”

“Only if you count sleeping in the same room as Puck as lucky,” Kurt says, though his heart can’t help but race at the thought of getting to sleep in the same space with Blaine, which he honestly didn’t expect. It makes up for the few misgivings he had about going to this party instead of on a proper date with Blaine. “He snores. And writes on the face of whoever falls asleep first.”

Tina laughs and pats his arm. “You’ll just have to stay up, then! You’re welcome for not reminding my parents that they need to update their sleepover rules for the twenty-first century.”

“Thanks, Tina.” Blaine’s face is lit up with a similar delight to what Kurt is feeling, and he hefts their two sleeping bags - one held in the crook of his elbow, the other dangling from his hand - and says, “I guess we should stake out our spot downstairs.”

Kurt smiles at his excitement and holds out a hand for one of the bags. “I’d better not wake up with a moustache drawn on my face. Or worse.”

“I’ll hide the markers before I go to bed,” Tina tells him.

“Like that will stop Puck,” Kurt says, his hand still extended, because Blaine is being gallant and not giving up his burden. “One time he covered Finn’s hair with shaving cream when the only sharpie he could find was dry.”

His heart twists a little at the thought of Finn, not a sharp, awful pain but a pointed ache nonetheless. Finn should be here. It’s a New Directions party, the last real one, and a graduation party for people who were his friends and students. He’s supposed to be here.

His mouth pressing flat, Kurt knows this is what life is, but it’s just never going to be right that Finn isn’t with them. It’s always going to hurt.

“Kurt!” Mercedes calls from the living room, beckoning him over with a smile and a crook of her finger. “Come over here, boy. We’ve got things to talk about!”

Sam lopes out of the kitchen, two closed cans of soda in each hand. “Blaine’s here!” He calls back over his shoulder. “Hey, Artie! Blaine’s here!”

Dropping his arm, Kurt looks between Blaine and Mercedes, torn, but Blaine just rubs his shoulder gently and says, “I can find a place for us to sleep by myself. It’s a party. Have fun. I’ll catch up with you later.”

A part of Kurt wants to stick by Blaine’s side. He’s happy to be with him, this party is for _Blaine’s_ graduation, and Kurt’s feeling Finn’s absence a little more keenly than usual with the end of glee club, a wound that’s flared up fresh and making him feel a little brittle. So many things he loved and that loved him back are gone. He’d prefer to be near people he cares about instead of making small talk with the new kids he barely knows who aren’t even in New Directions anymore, because there isn’t one.

But Mercedes isn’t a stranger but a dear friend, and Rachel’s sitting on the couch near her and smiling at him, apparently over her feud with both of them as well as with Santana. They’re two of the people he loves best in the world. The empty cushion on the end of the couch calls to him like it’s lit by spotlight. If he’s going to spend the night half-expecting Finn to come crashing through the doorway with Puck on his back and a balloon tied to his belt loop, he should be sitting with his girls while he does. And he _knows_ Mercedes hasn’t told him all of her stories.

Besides, Blaine will still be there at the end of the night. And in the morning. And soon in New York with him, because he’s really going to be moving there. He got into NYADA and is really, truly moving.

 _Finally_ things are going to be how they’re supposed to be. Finally they’ll be moving forward together. If there were some awful bumps in the road he didn’t expect - breaking up, his dad having cancer, losing Finn, even the end of glee club and the memory of the safe home it was for him when he needed it most, though he doesn’t need it anymore - at least they’re on the right path again.

“Okay,” Kurt says with a smile that might be faint but comes straight from his heart, full of hope and a deep sense of relief. “I trust you to pick a good spot. And save me a dance later?”

“There’s going to be dancing?” Blaine asks Tina, his eyes widening with even more delight.

“It’s a New Directions party,” Kurt says, smoothing his hand down Blaine’s lean, lovely back. “There’s always dancing.”

Blaine presses a quick kiss to Tina’s cheek. “This is going to be the best night. Thanks for doing it.”

“Thanks for coming,” she tells them both and gathers them in for another quick, happy hug. “It wouldn’t be right without you.”

 

_Brittany_

“Congratulations on getting into Brown,” Brittany tells Tina when she comes up beside her in the kitchen. Brittany’s pouring herself a drink, carefully mixing orange soda and ginger ale in just the right proportions to make it taste like those ginger snaps with marmalade Lord Tubbington likes so much.

“Thanks!” Tina says cheerfully, almost as cheerful as the colors her hair used to be. “I’m really excited!” She drops some ice into her cup.

Brittany nods and adds another two tablespoons of orange soda. She peers into the cup. Not quite right yet. “It’s cool that you’ll be in New York, too.”

Tina’s smile fades some as she unscrews the top of a bottle of diet soda. “Brown’s not in New York, Brittany.”

“I thought it was on Long Island.”

“It’s in _Rhode_ Island,” Tina tells her with the patient voice Brittany kind of hates. “It’s a _state_.”

Brittany isn’t stupid; sometimes she just doesn’t know things. Or the things she knows change in her head when she isn’t paying attention. It’s weird when they do that. Like when she turned on _Bewitched_ one day and suddenly didn’t recognize Darrin at all, even though everyone on the show was acting like he was exactly the same.

“Well,” Brittany replies, “at least you’ll still be on an island.”

Tina opens her mouth again, and it looks like it’s going to be to say something else condescending, so Brittany shrugs and goes off to find Santana before the words come out.

Santana’s the best, and not just because her lady-kisses make Brittany want to melt. When she looks at Brittany she never has any pity in her eyes, just love and understanding. It’s one of the best things about her.

Brittany speeds up her steps to find her; they’ve been apart too long. Not just now but all year. It’s time to stop missing her and just be next to her again.

 

_Unique_

“Hey, Boo,” Mercedes says, perching on the arm of Unique’s chair in the corner of the living room.

Unique looks up from her phone - although she’s only checking it out of habit, because her friends are all here, and Marley just got up for a second - to find Kurt in front of her, too, folding himself down to sit on the coffee table next to her outstretched legs.

“Hi,” Unique says with a wide, surprised smile. Her stomach flips despite herself; she knows they’re sort of friends at this point, but she still can’t get over the fact that she hangs out with _Mercedes_ and _Kurt_. She idolized them last year, and now they’re coming over to talk to _her_? “And how are the two most fabulous former members of New Directions tonight?”

“What, you aren’t counting yourself?” Mercedes asks, laughing.

Unique is startled into stillness for a moment, because she hadn’t thought of it quite that way. Mercedes is right, though. God, she’s right.

The smile fades on Unique’s face. She, too, is a former member of New Directions now. She didn’t graduate and leave it behind like the rest of them, but glee club is still gone. The whole reason she transferred, the club, the acceptance she’d seen given in it to Kurt... it’s gone.

“How are you doing?” Kurt asks more quietly, watching her in that serious way he has. “Are you okay?” It’s a big question, bigger than just the simple words he uses.

“I think so,” Unique replies. She takes a slow breath and tries to feel the truth of it. She hadn’t really expected to lose so much of what she came to McKinley for, but the end of glee club isn’t the end of _her_. “I will be. I’ll still have my friends. And Principal Sylvester is on my side now. Sort of.”

Mercedes makes a disbelieving face, and Kurt laughs a little.

“Sue’s on her own side,” Mercedes says firmly. “Always.”

“But she can be fair, if you know how to talk to her,” Kurt adds.

“I’ll be okay,” Unique tells them. Whatever happens, she’s not giving up who she is. She’s not going to compromise herself, no matter what happens in the locker rooms, no matter what happens at home. She’s come too far too give up being herself. “If I need to transfer again, I will. But - “ She looks across the room where Marley has stopped to talk to Kitty and Artie and knows that even without glee club she’s not going to be totally alone anymore. “ - I don’t think I’ll need to.”

“Good,” Mercedes says, bending down to give her a quick hug. “But whatever happens, you keep in touch with me, okay? Because I want to follow you as you rise up on the ladder of fabulousness and success.”

“I do, too,” Kurt adds, as though it’s obvious that he would.

“You got it,” Unique replies with a fierce sense of pride in their belief in her. “And I want _you_ to keep in touch with _me_ , girl, because if you ever clean out your closet I want first pick.” She fingers the sleeve of Mercedes’ shimmering purple shirt. “This shirt is fabulous.”

Mercedes laughs again. “Deal. Although you should really just come visit me in LA. I’ll take you to all the best places for divas to shop.”

“Or come to New York,” Kurt says, a small, genuine smile curving that cute pink bow of his mouth. “We have even better shopping.”

“Better shopping than LA?” Mercedes gives his shoulder a playful nudge. “Are you crazy?”

“ _Mercedes_ ,” he begins, like he’s actually offended. He probably is.

“I will do _both_ ,” Unique says before they can get going. “All right?”

“Okay,” Mercedes says with a warm, happy laugh. “That’s even better.”

Unique looks between them, both so different and sure in their own ways. She looks at Mercedes’ huge smile and the simple ring on Kurt’s finger. She looks at the easy contentment in Kurt’s eyes, eyes she knows were haunted and tearful just a few years ago.

Something in her settles. She might have a hard time until she graduates, especially without a place to raise her voice and be heard for who she is. The bullying and taunting was bad enough even with so many friends around her. She’d bet it’s going to get worse.

But there’s more ahead than just that. There’s better.

There’s something big to look forward to - the rest of her life - and she knows with a fire in her heart that will never go out no matter how many slushies are poured on it that it’s going to be just as amazing as theirs.

 

_Puck_

Puck swings around the corner into the living room, one hand on the doorjamb, and looks around for Tina’s parents. They keep walking through and checking on them, supposedly to make sure they have everything they need, but Puck knows better. They’re chaperoning, all responsible and shit.

Fucking buzzkills.

He’s pleased to see they’re nowhere to be found, though, so he pulls the bottle from the inside pocket of his jacket and uncaps it, sauntering over to the couch.

“Here we go,” he says, splashing a healthy pour of vodka into Mercedes’ cup before moving to Rachel’s. “Spreading some _real_ graduation cheer. Let’s get this party started!”

“Puck!” Rachel hisses, although he notices she doesn’t move her cup away. “What are you doing? You’ll get us kicked out!”

“Don’t worry about it,” he says. “We can all hold our liquor now, right? No harm, no foul, no vomiting on the floor. Just a little juice to keep us all going.”

Rachel looks unconvinced and pulls her cup back up against her chest, and Kurt beside her gives him a judgmental look. But then before Puck can tell him he’s being a stick in the mud again, he lifts his cup and his eyebrows.

“Hell, yeah! I knew you’d loosen up sometime!” Puck tells him, letting the vodka glug out easily into his soda. He leans in, still pouring. “And don’t worry. I got your other half already. So if this gets you hot and bothered down there, he’ll be ready for you.”

Kurt’s eyes go hard before he rolls them. “How do you know he isn’t always ready for me?”

“Yeah, you should have heard them when the hobbit visited New York,” Santana says from a nearby chair. “They couldn’t go an hour without jumping each other’s delicate gay bones. I’m amazed they could walk at all.”

“Santana!” Kurt says with a scowl, but Puck thinks he looks more proud than anything. Maybe he should be. Puck’s heard stories from Finn about moaning and stuff coming from Kurt’s room, and Puck’s been in the locker room with Kurt enough to know he should proud of the tool he has to work with. Not that he was looking, but it’s a locker room. Dicks happen. Besides, if Kurt didn’t want anyone to see his, he wouldn’t wear such tight pants.

Mercedes starts to giggle, covering her mouth and leaning back against the couch cushions.

“Dude, whatever, I’m just trying to help you get some.” Puck salutes him with the bottle and leaves them be. They’ll thank him later. Maybe he should put some condoms and a towel in their sleeping bags, too. Nobody likes sleeping in a wet spot, not even two dudes.

As he goes over to the new kids to help get them in the mood, he sees Quinn standing in the doorway, watching him.

For a minute, he feels guilty that she caught him passing out drinks. After all, he’s an adult now. He’s in the Air Force. He’s her boyfriend. He’s supposed to be better than this.

“Corrupting minors again?” she asks, but she sounds more fond than angry, and if that doesn’t show how much _she’s_ grown up, too, he doesn’t know what would. She isn’t coming down on him as the Queen Ice Bitch from on high. She knows this is him. She accepts it.

“Making sure glee club gets the best fucking send-off I can,” Puck tells her, low and fierce, because it’s important. If it has to be over, he’s going to make sure it goes out with a bang. They deserve nothing less. _Finn_ deserves nothing less.

And he’s doing it like an adult; he got vodka instead of tequila for less of a hangover, and if people need to throw up he’s going to do his best to make sure it’s in the toilet or one of the stupid potted plants sitting around instead of on the rug. Just like Finn would want.

“Okay,” she says with a nod. “I’ll get my cup.” She gives him a kiss on the cheek before walking back toward the kitchen.

Puck watches her, mesmerized by the sway of her hips and the bounce of her perfect hair. He’s just as mesmerized by her _understanding_.

She didn’t fight him at all. She didn’t put on any airs or tell him what to do. She just listened and said okay. Like she finally realizes that sometimes he’s right, too.

“Huh,” he says to himself.

He knows their relationship has always been kind of messed up, but maybe, he thinks in wonder, maybe this time it will actually work.

 

_Tina_

“I’m really happy about Brown, but it’s still o-o-o-ver,” Tina sobs against Blaine’s shoulder in the hallway. “High school is _over_.”

Everything she’s loved over the past four years is just over. Life will never be the same again. She won’t see her friends everyday. She won’t see them in glee club or go to the movies with them on the weekends. She won’t share songs and classes and pizza Fridays in the cafeteria anymore.

They won’t do any of that anymore. They’re just going to drift apart and become people who like each other’s posts on Facebook and maybe get together once a year at Christmas or Thanksgiving for a quick lunch and a lot of fake smiles and carefully edited stories of their supposedly fabulous lives.

Nothing will never, ever be the same.

It’s _horrible_.

“I know,” Sam says as Blaine gently pats her back, there for her like they’ve been most of the year. Like they won’t be soon.

She curls her fingers into Blaine’s polo and cries harder. “You’re such good frie-he-he-hends,” she tells them. “I love you both so much.”

“We love you, too, Queen T,” Blaine says. “We always will.”

“And you can come visit us in New York,” Sam says. He lowers his voice, clearly talking to Blaine. “It’s not that far away, right? All those East Coast states kind of blur together.”

“It’s not far,” Blaine assures them both, kind as always. “We’ll all visit. Okay?”

Tina nods against the damp cloth covering his shoulder. He’s such a good hugger. She’ll miss his hugs. And the way he smells. And the way he pulls her in close when they dance, like one of those old, romantic movies. She’s going to miss him so _much_. “Okaaaaay,” she wails.

“Hey, Tina,” Ryder says from down the hallway, “where are the paper towels? And the broom?”

She knows she ought to worry about whatever mess they’ve already made, but she just can’t bring herself to care when her entire world is falling apart. “By the si-hi-hi-hink,” she says.

“Thanks!” Ryder says.

“Come on, Tina, let’s enjoy the party,” Blaine says with that bubbly good nature she also loves about him. “We’re all together now. We should be having fun.” 

“I know,” she says, curling closer into him. “I just need to do this first.”

And Blaine, because he’s the best person in the whole world, stays there and holds onto her. He rubs her back and strokes her hair as Sam pats her shoulder, and she cries and cries and cries, because she can. Because she has to. Because she feels so much she needs to let out.

Tina cries with her very best friends close around her, because she has them here now to love her while she does, and soon she won’t anymore.

 

_Kitty_

“You know,” Kitty says, crossing her legs where she’s perched on Artie’s lap as he wheels her to a halt by the kitchen window, “I’m really going to miss having you wheel me around school next year. You’re my own personal taxi service.”

Artie shakes his head and grabs a tortilla chip from the plate she’s holding for them both. “You’ve gotten spoiled, woman,” he says with a fond laugh. “You’re gonna have to learn to pull your own weight around here.”

Kitty strokes her fingers down the back of his neck, her own smile coming out sad. She’s going to miss a lot about him, from his sweetness to the way he can make her laugh like no one else. He makes her feel special, stands up to her and is kind to her in a way she didn’t know she needed. No other boy has ever treated her so well.

She’s not sure what will happen when he leaves for college. They haven’t really talked about it yet. She doesn’t know if they’re going to try to make it work somehow over the distance or just agree that this thing between them has to end. Whatever happens, they won’t be in the same place anymore. She won’t have _this_.

“Yeah,” she says softly, kissing the top of his head. “I’m definitely spoiled.”

 

_Santana_

Santana nurses her drink - grateful for the vodka in it from Puck, though she’s got some hooch of her own in her bag if his stash runs dry - and watches Brittany dip and spin across the living room floor in Mike’s sure grip. Brittany’s hair is a glorious fan of gold mirrored in the swirl of her patchwork skirt as she laughs and twirls. Her laughter is as bright as her hair, as bright as the light in her eyes, as bright as she makes every room she walks into.

At least that’s what it seems like to Santana, and she scowls down at her cup for a moment before giving herself up to the glow of her feelings. She doesn’t need to be fighting it anymore. It kind of seems pointless, anyway.

She smiles a little, her heart pounding against her rib cage. It’s been a long time since she’s been able to resist Brittany.

Brittany’s eyes flash toward her, and Santana’s smile grows. Her heart flutters with happiness, so close to this person it wants so badly, this person that knows it better than Santana does, sometimes.

She’s happy, although if she’s honest she’s a little queasy, too. It’s like she’s seasick or stumbling on quicksand instead of sitting on Tina’s weird brown and blue couch. There’s only so much the vodka can do to settle her stomach at this abrupt shift of direction in her life that’s taken place over the past few days.

She’s never been good at not going for what she wants... or for what she doesn’t actually want but is fighting for, anyway, because it’s there in front of her. Boys, solos, parts in shows... She’s used to having something to fight for, something specific she’s taking for her own from other people who want it.

But now she’s with Brittany again, this woman who can crush her with the wrong word and who she loves more than anything, and she’s no longer trying to beat Rachel Berry to the top of the Broadway heap, because it was a race she knew how to run for a prize that wasn’t a bad one. She’s... doing something else. Something for her.

It’s kind of terrifying.

It’s always been a lot easier fighting for something she doesn’t want than showing the world what she does. Santana would rather be clawing her way toward something, anything, than be standing on the edge of a cliff and looking like an idiot because she doesn’t know which way to jump or because she does and nobody around her thinks it’s worth jumping for.

And now she’s made the choice to stand still for a little while.

Standing still is terrifying. Santana’s always thought it was because she was like a shark, needing to move and bite other people to survive, but maybe it’s because she’s actually a mouse, and not running for something means she can be caught. She can be seen. She and all of her dreams are just sitting there, ready to be squashed by a foot or a harsh word.

Maybe she’s both animals, really, because she knows her teeth are sharp, too, or else she’s the fiercest damn mouse in the world.

Either way, looking into her heart and risking it instead of grabbing for the much less meaningful dreams of other people’s hearts doesn’t feel safe. It sure doesn’t feel easy.

But as Brittany spins and spins in front of her - dancing like a dream, dancing like she’s always done in _Santana’s_ dreams, long before Santana could ever admit why - Santana takes a deep breath and another gulp of her drink and reminds herself that it has never mattered what was easy. It only matters what she wants. It only matters what is in her heart.

Dani is wonderful, and being on Broadway is a great start to a career, but they aren’t in her heart.

Brittany is. As are all her other dreams.

That’s what she’s going to grab for, instead.

Brittany bounces toward her, her hand out to pull her off of the couch and her eyes as bright as the sun. She’s utterly beautiful, like she always is, sweet and wild, full of magic, wisdom, and love.

The rest of the room fades away, as do Santana’s doubts, at least for now. She still feels lost, but it’s a lot less scary being lost with Brittany by her side. Smiling, she puts her drink down and all but leaps up to join her, drawing this woman she loves back into her arms.

No, Santana hasn’t been able to resist her pull for a very, very long time.

She might be scared to do it, but look what she gets if she listens to herself. Look what she gets if she tries.

Brittany smiles again - into Santana’s eyes, into her heart - and Santana knows the risk is absolutely worth it.

 

_Ryder_

Ryder sits on the edge of the hearth of the big brick fireplace beside Jake, their elbows and knees knocking together companionably as they sway with the beat of the music pounding through the room. He doesn’t know how Tina’s parents could go to bed and actually sleep with this party going on. They must have amazing ear plugs.

Stretching out his legs, he leans back on his hands and smiles to himself. He’s only a little buzzed, more high on the night than anything. It’s been fun. He’d gotten to dance with Marley and Kitty, and Blaine had picked him to do the hand jive with a few songs ago, which had been a little weird but mostly cool.

He’s taking a break now, because Lady Gaga is playing on the iPod, and he had enough of her during their Katy vs. Gaga week. Besides, it’s kind of awesome to watch all of these older kids acting like total idiots, doing monster claws at each other and singing at the top of their lungs in the middle of Tina’s living room.

Tina is spinning giddily around Mike, Rachel and Quinn are striking poses with each other at the edge of the carpet, Santana is dancing like she’s liquid sex (but then when doesn’t she?), Brittany is strutting around like she’s on a runway with a makeshift crown of balloons bobbing above her head, Puck and Sam seem to be engaged in some sort of homoerotic hip-rolling contest, and Kurt, Blaine, and Mercedes are laughing themselves almost onto the floor as they dance together in fierce, happy motions.

It’s like this weird, wild funhouse of a dance club right here in front of him.

“I have never seen anything like this,” Ryder says in amazement. “I can’t believe everything we did was so tame.”

“I don’t know, man,” Jake says to him, low beneath the music. “Look at them. They’re all so different from each other. It’s weird. They don’t make a lot of sense.”

“I guess,” Ryder says slowly.

“And all that drama?” Jake continues. “All those relationships switching around? We’ve heard the stories. We were lucky to be too late to be a part of it.”

Ryder shrugs, not really an answer. It’s not like he wanted more drama. They’ve had enough of it with glee club being disbanded not once but twice this year, plus all of the dating stuff that’s gone on. He knows it was that much more intense with the older kids, plus daily slushies and locker slams to worry about, even if you were a football player. He knows they had it a lot harder.

But as Kurt spins Blaine around and Brittany undulates like a dancing goddess in the middle of the floor to appreciative whoops from Mike and Artie, as he thinks about the ghost of Finn and the reality of not having a glee club to come back to in the fall at all, Ryder sees the strong, true bonds between them and is pretty sure if he’d been older and a part of the group from the beginning he would have had even more fun than he already did. And he had plenty of fun.

“Maybe,” he says to Jake, because he doesn’t want to argue, but he doesn’t believe it. Not for a second.

It’s not a maybe.

If he’d been able to be a part of glee club for all four years, he knows as surely as he knows his own name that he would have fucking _loved_ it.

 

_Mercedes_

“No,” Kurt tells Blaine with a light, easy laugh, sounding so much more truly confident to Mercedes’s ears than he ever used to. “I know what that look means.”

“What?” Blaine asks. He watches Kurt from the bottom of the porch steps, all innocence.

Kurt keeps rocking beside Mercedes, not disturbing their rhythm on the swing at all. “You say you want to go for a walk around the yard, but I know what you really want. And it’s not that big of a yard. I can see most of it from here.”

“It’s a nice night, Kurt,” Blaine pleads, lifting his eyebrows mournfully. “The stars are beautiful.”

Kurt laughs and shakes his head again. “Come up here with us. There’s room on the swing.”

“I don’t know how you ever say no to those puppy dog eyes,” Mercedes tells Kurt, smiling at them both. It’s just really cute how much they love each other.

“I’m not saying no to him,” Kurt says. “I’m saying no to getting twigs in my hair and ending up on Puck’s YouTube channel when Blaine convinces me to make out with him in the bushes and Puck comes after us with his night vision camera.”

“You could just not make out with him,” Mercedes suggests with a grin.

“Hey,” Blaine says and turns his sad eyes in her direction.

Kurt looks unconvinced, his mouth twisting into something of a self-conscious grimace. “He’s very persuasive,” he says.

“And you like making out with him,” she says.

Kurt might flush a little, but he doesn’t deny it. “Well, look at him.” He waves his fingers in illustration at his fiancé.

Blaine’s smile grows, and he holds out a hand. “Come on, Kurt. I want to spend some time with you.”

Mercedes can see Kurt waver. It’s plain on his face how much he wants to spend the time with Blaine, too. He hasn’t left his seat, but he’s gone from alcohol-relaxed to tensed, not upset but like he’s about to get up. And yet something’s stopping him. Maybe it’s her. Maybe it’s the bushes. Maybe it really is the threat of Puck.

“Here,” she says, getting up off of the swing. “ _I’ll_ go inside. Then you two can sit here together, in plain sight of the house. So if you get filmed, it’s your own fault. And no twigs.”

“Aw, thanks, Mercedes,” Blaine says warmly, skipping up the steps and swooping in next to Kurt, much closer than she was sitting. Kurt’s arm automatically moves from the back to the swing to curl around him.

Mercedes shakes her head. It’s good to see her friend so happy. It’s hard to believe that he has an engagement ring on his finger, especially when he was so vocal about it being too early for Finn and Rachel to get engaged in high school, but when she sees them together she knows why he said yes. They’re in love. She’s seen it in their eyes all night. She’s seen it for years, really. They have something special - like Finn and Rachel did, she thinks now - and Kurt clearly knows it. They both do.

She’s not too proud to admit that she’s a little jealous. But she’s young. She’s got plenty of time to find _her_ man, the Blaine to her Kurt, the Jay-Z to her Beyoncé, someone who isn’t afraid of her being strong and successful, someone who will support her and love her and not get in her way.

It’s all right. She can wait. She’s got her career and good friends to keep her busy ‘til she finds her man.

So she might be jealous, but she’s not at all sad when she smiles at them, twiddles her fingers at Kurt, and leaves them alone.

And if she happens to turn off the back porch light to give them a little more privacy, well... that’s just what a good friend does.

 

_Marley_

“I can’t believe you have to go home,” Marley says to Unique, walking her out onto Tina’s front porch.

“I know,” Unique says with a sigh. “But my parents want to get an early start in the morning, so I’m lucky they agreed to pick me up this late. They were shooting for nine at first. Nine! Can you believe it?”

“Do you need a mint or anything? Because of the - ” Marley lowers her voice. “ - drinking.”

Unique laughs and shakes her head. “No, girl, I’m all set. I didn’t let Puck anywhere near me. My mom’s nose is like a bloodhound’s. No way I’m getting grounded all summer for a couple of sips of god knows what.”

“Oh, good,” Marley says in some relief, her whole body relaxing. Well, mostly. She knows her mom would be mad if she knew she was here with kids who were drinking, too, no matter that Tina’s parents are upstairs. She watches her friend’s face, wishing with all her heart she didn’t have to go. It makes the end of the year feel all that much more real with Unique going away on vacation already. “You’ll text me while you’re away, right?”

“You know I will,” Unique says, gesturing with the phone in her hand before tucking it in her bag. “And you’d better text back, because I’m going to be _crazy_ bored on this road trip. Two weeks. They’re not even going to let me pick the music in the car, if you can believe that.”

“I will,” Marley promises, the words cracking a little, and she presses in for a hug, wanting to be as close to her as she can be while they’re still in the same place. “And we’ll hang out when you get back.”

“All the time,” Unique promises in reply, soft but fervent. “So write us some good songs to sing together, okay?”

Marley squeezes her eyes shut against the tears she won’t let come. Just because glee club is over, just because the group is crumbling before her eyes, just because so much she loved is going to be gone, _this_ isn’t over. It can’t be. She and Unique won’t let it be.

“I will,” she whispers, and she holds on tightly until Unique’s parents’ car comes up the driveway and it’s time to let go, whether she likes it or not.

 

_Sam_

“We’re not just bros,” Sam tells Blaine, his arm around his friend’s shoulders as they sit out on the back steps together, the yard dark around them. “We’re _brothers_.”

Blaine nods thoughtfully, the same way he always does. Sam loves that about him, that Blaine always _listens_.

“I mean, I know we both have brothers of our own,” Sam hurries on, even though he knows Blaine won’t interrupt him until he’s done. Because he’s listening. Because he’s the best. “DNA-brothers. But we’re more than that. We’re, like, music-brothers.” He puts his hand over his heart, where his music comes from. “That’s not just our DNA. That’s our _souls_.”

Blaine nods again, and when he speaks his voice is kind of thick, like with tears, which is cool, because Blaine only cries about important things. “That’s really beautiful, Sam,” he says, and when Sam pulls him in for a hug he falls into it, hugging back just as hard.

Sam claps Blaine’s back and hugs it out. Blaine is the best hugger. He’s the best kind of friend. He’s kind. He’s caring. He’s enthusiastic. He listens and tries his best all the time, and he’s always there for his friends. He does everything with his heart, and Sam loves that about him, too.

“I love you, Blaine,” Sam tells him. “Not in the sexy way you love Kurt, but because you’re my brother. No sex allowed. That would be incest. And I think Kurt would kill me.”

Blaine laughs, a squeaky, happy little sound. “I love you, too, Sam.”

It isn’t the vodka talking, Sam knows. They do love each other. Because they’re music-brothers, and it’s _awesome_.

And they’re both going to New York to be music-brothers forever, and that’s even _better_.

 

_Blaine_

Somewhere around two in the morning, Blaine rests his head against Kurt’s, his eyes drooping halfway shut but his mouth curved up with contentment. It isn’t just that he’s sitting on Kurt’s lap in the big wing chair in the corner of the living room with Kurt’s arms loose around his waist that’s making him happy. It isn’t just the alcohol buzzing in his system, making him feel lazy and warm. It isn’t just the late hour tearing down his defenses.

It’s that he’s here, with all of these people, Sam and Puck strumming their guitars while Rachel and Marley harmonize beautifully on an old Indigo Girls song, Santana and Brittany rocking together beside them with their eyes soft and their heads together, Ryder and Jake playing cards in the corner with Artie and Mike, all of them laughing. It’s all of these people he loves, all of these people who love him, who have supported him and sung with him and helped him over the years, all around him, all together.

There are people missing, for sure. Finn is the most important, the huge hole that can never again be filled, but Rory’s not here, either. Sugar. Joe. Lauren, although if he’s honest Blaine always found her a little scary. The jazz band and Brad. Mr. Schue, who brought them all together, though it isn’t like he should be here, because then he’d be telling them not to drink and probably trying to find a theme for their impromptu scattering of songs filling the night.

Blaine feels those gaps like wounds in his heart, but he’s still happy. This is still a wonderful night, filled with wonderful people.

They aren’t just his friends. They’re his family. They always will be, no matter how far apart they drift. He came to New Directions to have Kurt, and he got so much more. So, so, _so_ much more.

“Having fun?” Kurt murmurs in Blaine’s ear, the puff of his breath and the low grit of his voice sinking right into Blaine’s gut, warming him from the inside out.

“Mm,” Blaine replies. “I really am.”

Kurt hums softly along with the girls, adding a gorgeous layer of harmony just for Blaine’s lucky ears. “I’m glad,” he says when the verse is over. He tightens his arms a little, his voice lowering that much more. “You really like them.”

“I do,” Blaine says, feeling his heart flex and expand that much more at the sight of all of them together around him. “They’re family, you know?”

“Mm,” Kurt agrees. He hesitates for a moment. “I’m glad you had them when I wasn’t here.”

Blaine runs his hands along Kurt’s arms and feels the bit of roughness in Kurt’s words deep into his own chest. It was a tough year, but it’s ending so well. He can’t be sad, not anymore. “Me, too,” he says, as simple as that. That’s what matters, really, that they all have each other. Not the losses big and small, but the way they’ve gotten through it together.

The song ends, and Tina and Kitty pick up the next one together. Blaine adds in a few harmonies of his own on the chorus, but he’s happy to let them carry it. He loves listening to his friends sing. Besides, he and Kurt owned their duet earlier, and he doesn’t have anything more to prove.

“You seem tired,” Kurt comments during the bridge. “Want to head to bed soon? Mike and Artie already went down; we don’t have to worry about Puck drawing on us.”

Blaine leans back against Kurt’s strong chest, always so perfect and comfortable, like it was made for him, and nods. He can’t bring himself to get up, though. He’s not ready. He knows there will be more time for the group in the morning, breakfast with pancakes and headaches, maybe a movie to watch piled up together on the couch and carpet if they can all agree on one before it’s time to leave.

But they _will_ have to leave. In the morning, it will be over. It will be sleep-crusted eyes, weird hair, orange juice, and goodbyes. Goodbyes for the summer or in some cases maybe for good.

No. Blaine doesn’t want to think about goodbyes for good. That’s not going to happen. It can’t. They’ll see each other over the summer, on holidays, and at weddings. He and Kurt are going to invite them all to their wedding, after all, and he knows they’ll come. They have to. He wants New Directions and the Warblers and friends and family there, all together, just like when he proposed.

Blaine threads his fingers through Kurt’s on his stomach, finding comfort in the ring on Kurt’s finger and the love in their hearts. If he could get Kurt back, then nothing is impossible. No, things may be changing, but the important things will stay the same. Friendships will last. This family will last. He isn’t losing anything. He’s going to have it all. He’s sure of it.

Still... as much as it’s taking a lot of work for him to keep his eyes open, as much as he just wants to sink back against Kurt and lose himself in his warmth, he can’t quite bring himself to go downstairs with Kurt to curl up together in the little nest he made for them of sleeping bags and a cozy blanket he grabbed from Tina’s parents’ linen closet (with their permission, of course).

He can’t escape the fact that tomorrow when he opens his eyes, it’s going to be a new day, a new world. It will be amazing, filled with so many exciting things to look forward to like going to New York, starting college, and getting married, but it will still be new. It won’t be what he knows. It won’t be what he has right now.

Blaine loves all of that. He’s ready for it. He’s ready to be an adult. He’s ready to be with Kurt.

He’s ready to be able to curl up with Kurt every night in a bed, not just in a corner of Tina’s musty rec room on a pile of blankets. He’s ready not to have to steal kisses out on the porch swing but be able to kiss Kurt anywhere he wants. He’s ready to count their time together in years, not hours, to take being together a little for granted, to be building _their_ life instead of sharing their two lives over Skype. He’s ready for it all.

And yet as Blaine looks at his friends gathered all around him, draped across the furniture and each other in varied states of drowsiness and inebriation, all together before they scatter around the country on their own journeys through life, a young, tender, almost scared part of him wants this one last night of high school and glee club to last forever.

Because in the morning, no matter how great it will all be, this part of their lives will be over for good. And no matter how much he knows they’ll all fight to keep up their friendships, it’s never going to be the same.

For good or bad, it can’t be.

So Blaine sits on Kurt’s lap, watches his friends, and doesn’t quite find it in himself to get up and go downstairs. Not yet.

 

_Rachel_

Rachel wraps her hands around her mug of tea and looks out of the kitchen window up into the indigo-purple sky of early morning. She’s not used to being able to see so much of the sky, and the beauty of it makes her smile even as she aches for the brick and steel of New York to be rising all around her. It’s been a nice enough party, with good music and good friends, but it’s true that she doesn’t know the newer members at all, and she’s drifted apart from some of the older ones. She’s always been set apart, really, by both personality and her impressive level of talent.

This hasn’t been so much of a homecoming as a reminder that without Finn and without glee club this just isn’t home at all anymore.

A soft scuff against the kitchen floor makes her turn around, and she’s surprised to find Kurt there, shuffling in on bare feet with his clothes rumpled and his hair an oddly shaped tuft from whatever position he slept in for the past few hours. It’s funny how the sight of him that way makes her heart twist; she misses that, too, as much as she misses New York. He’s supposed to be her home there. She’s supposed to wake up to him every morning, her very best friend in the very best city in the world. That was the plan.

But then she knows as well as anyone now that life doesn’t really follow anyone’s plans.

“I thought you’d be one of the last ones to get up,” she says as he goes for the kettle. “I mean, I know how clingy you get when you sleep, and with Blaine there to hug instead of Bruce I thought we’d have to pry you both out from under the covers at noon.”

“I’ve got nothing on Blaine when it comes to clinging,” Kurt replies, his voice sleep-rough. “He’s like one of those hugging monkey toys. Or a boa constrictor. And he’s so _hot_.”

Rachel laughs and takes a quick sip of her tea as Kurt fixes her with a stern glare.

“When he _sleeps_ ,” Kurt tells her. “He’s hot when he _sleeps_. He gives off heat like a furnace. With the sleeping bags zipped together, I woke up feeling like I was in a very small dry sauna.” He makes a disgusted face.

“I guess you’ll have to get used to that.”

Kurt finishes filling the kettle and puts it on a burner on the stove, flicking it on and checking that it’s lit. His smile is small but full of wonder when he looks up again. “I guess I will,” he says with breathy surprise, like he’d forgotten that his future with Blaine is almost here. “I’m going to get used to it.”

Rachel nods, smiling back at him. If it tastes bitter on her lips, she doesn’t show it. She’s happy for him, after all, even if she doesn’t have the same thing. She loves him enough to be thrilled for him. She remembers how heartbroken and lonely he was and can see as clear as day how deeply content he is to have found his way back together with Blaine. He deserves to be.

Kurt puts a tea bag in his empty mug and comes to stand beside her, looking out into the ink-dark yard. “What are _you_ doing up?” he asks.

“I couldn’t sleep,” she says simply.

It’s not that any one thing kept her up, really. It just felt wrong to be lying in the far side of Tina’s bed with Kitty curled on the floor beside her and someone - she’s pretty sure it was Marley, but the uncharitable part of her who was once sixteen and in love with a boy in love with another girl hopes it was Quinn - snoring softly across the room. It felt wrong to be in Tina’s house at all with these people and know deep in her heart that the feelings of togetherness the rest of them were all reveling in were all as impossible to count on as good reviews or an empty taxi in the rain.

She couldn’t just lie there anymore and pretend that she was feeling the same things they do.

It’s not that she doesn’t love glee club. Of course she does. She loves it more than almost anything.

But she’s grown up. She’s moved on. And now that glee club is over, all of them will be moving on, too. Friends will fall apart. People will move away. It’s what happens.

Life isn’t what she thought it was when she graduated from high school, and she just can’t pretend it is. Things end. Everythings ends. You just can’t hold onto everything, no matter how much you might want to. She knows that now.

It’s something she can handle, but she just can’t bring herself to pretend anymore. Not tonight. Not here, not where so much she cared about is so obviously missing.

Kurt’s eyes turn from the window to her face, wise and weary the way they sometimes get, and she doesn’t quite have it in her to look away. “It’s hard,” he says finally, and she knows he feels the same heaviness she has in her heart.

“It’s all really gone,” she says. She thinks of the empty choir room, the plaque in the auditorium, the doors shut to them all for the last time, the past she can never, ever regain. It’s the final nail in the coffin, one last door slammed shut. “ _He’s_ gone.”

Kurt slips his arm around her, and she leans into him. Tears prickle behind her eyelids, but she tells herself she’s not going to cry. This isn’t a sadness she has to let out. She’s just going to hold it in her heart. She’ll carry it with her forever.

“Yeah,” he says softly, his voice rich with sadness. “But _we_ aren’t.”

Rachel nods against his chest. “I know,” she replies, but it’s not the same.

But that’s the thing about carrying something in her heart. Even if it’s not something she can go back and visit, even if she will never walk into the choir room again, even if she can never walk into Finn’s arms again, she also won’t ever forget what it all meant.

“We’re still New Directions,” Kurt says, sharing her thoughts like he so often does. “And we still love Finn. We won’t forget.”

“I don’t want to,” she says.

“We won’t,” he assures her.

Rachel nods again, her eyes getting more watery, but she firms her chin and holds those tears back. She knows details are already slipping away. She will forget the smell of the polish on the choir room floor and the squeak of the windows on the rare days they were allowed to open them, and then she’ll forget the steps they danced and the songs they sang, the way Finn’s laughter could ring out all the way down the hall and through the door before he even got there, and maybe even the way his smile lit up the room when he looked her way.

And now she can’t go back and be reminded of any of it. The room, her home there, and all of the memories... It’s all _gone_. The room, the club... there’s nothing left at all for her to hold onto of the happiest place she probably will ever have been in her life, and she didn’t even know it was at the time.

But, she thinks with a determined breath, she has this. She has Kurt. She has her friends, at least some of them. And they won’t let her forget everything. They won’t let her forget what matters the most.

Glee club might have ended, but their hearts are still beating, and everything that’s important is still contained in them. The memories are, anyway.

That’s all there is now, and she won’t let that go. She is glad she doesn’t have to.

“I love you, you know,” she says, a little wobbly but from the truest depths of her heart. “Even when I’m mad at you for betraying me with Santana.”

Kurt huffs out a breath and says, “I love you, too, Rachel.” He squeezes her closer. “Even when you’re insane.”

Smiling through her tears, she hugs him back tightly. She’s so glad this fight with Santana is over so she can have her best gay back beside her where he belongs.

“I’m going to thank you when I win my Tony, you know,” she tells him. “My dads, Barbra, Mr. Schue, and you. And Finn. And maybe Patti LuPone, but I think there’s a good chance she and I are going to be engaged in a vicious but highly professional feud by then. We’ll make up by my second Tony.”

Kurt laughs, the sound coming a little rough from his throat, but she can tell that he’s touched by being included in her speech. She knows he knows what it means to her. She knows he loves her right back. She knows that no matter what has happened to the club that brought them together this friendship is forever.

“You’re on the short list to be my date,” she adds. “But either way you’ll definitely be in my speech, Kurt.”

Kurt squeezes her again and says fervently - like he’s as certain as she is that her vision of the future and his place in it is what has to happen, or at least like he wants it to be just as much as she does - “I can’t wait.”

**Author's Note:**

> Reminder: I am spoiler-free! Please don't spoil me!


End file.
